


A Slip Through Time

by tiara123458



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Deus Ex Machina, F/M, It's platonic though - Freeform, M/M, Parkner Secret Santa 2019, Please note I don't remember a lot of what happened in Endgame, Sharing a Bed, So some of this is me bullshitting based on what I remember, Temporary Character Death, There's a lot more angst than I meant to add, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, bits and pieces of fluff, just a little bit though, like I'm not kidding, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21964876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiara123458/pseuds/tiara123458
Summary: Peter and Harley are in mourning.In another time, Tony is as well.In that case, thank goodness for faulty time machine's, amirite?Parkner Secret Santa, 2019!
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 208





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for @youre-killing-me-fandom on Tumblr! Merry Christmas!

Peter stared into the water, trying to ignore the bright sheen that reflected off of the surface. His suit was uncomfortably warm and felt too heavy under the blaring heat of the sun, directly contrasting the chill of the air. In the far distance, he could still see Mr. Stark's shroud floating on the water. Peter still couldn't believe he was gone. It had all seemed so sudden, so confusing.

One second, Peter had been on Titan with Mr. Stark, had watched as everyone turned to dust around him and then his hands and his feet had started to tingle and disintegrate, Mr. Stark had looked so scared and then Peter had only been dust, hadn't existed, he had been dead and _god_ it had been five years. Peter had missed five years and Mr. Stark now had a daughter. Mr. Stark was now _dead_.

Peter thought that maybe he could have handled having missed five years. It would have taken time, but so many other people had also missed five years. Allowances would have been made, and it would have been alright eventually. Peter wasn't alone in that.

But Mr. Stark was _gone, dead_. Some new family was living in Peter's apartment, some new person had taken Aunt May's job, and would the scholarship to Midtown still apply? Peter didn't know where to go from here. It felt like his entire world had crumbled completely in just a couple of hours, and Mr. Stark was _dead_. There was a jumbled mess of emotions--anxiety, stress, sadness, horror, _terror_ \--in Peter's chest.

"Hey. You're Peter, right?" A masculine voice snapped Peter out of his increasingly dark thoughts. Standing on the dock a couple feet behind Peter stood the blond teenager that had been introduced to Peter as Harley. His eyes were tired, sad. Tension lined his shoulders.

"Yeah," Peter confirmed. It was silent for a moment, as neither of them knew what to say, before Peter continued. "And you're Harley?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
They dissolved back into silence before Harley shrugged and took a seat beside Peter on the edge of the dock. Harley squinted his eyes against the sun, even as he focused on the shroud in the distance.  
  
Neither of them said a word, but Peter thought that it was sort of nice. Harley wasn't saying any of the meaningless platitudes that he had been hearing from everyone else. The world wasn't anymore cheerful of a place as it had been before, but there was something comforting about another person being there with him, suffering the same way he was. Peter hated the fact that he felt that way, because he didn't want anyone to feel as badly as he was, but he couldn't help the comfort that-  
"How'd you meet?" Harley's eyes were still on the lake. "He used to talk about you all the time. But he'd never say how you met. Said that it was your secret to tell."  
  
Peter paused. How much did he really care about his secret identity at this point? Besides, Mr Stark had trusted Harley. Had wanted to invite him over so that Harley and Peter could meet, had wanted Peter to tell Harley about being Spider-Man if they got along. _Never can have too many people in your corner_ , he had said. Besides, even if Harley told anyone, it wasn't likely many people would believe him anyway.  
  
"He just randomly showed up in my apartment. Like, we'd never met before or spoken or anything and then he just showed up in my apartment, talking to my aunt about some scholarship that I had never even signed up for." Peter took a deep breath. He'd just say it. "Turns out, he was actually there because I'm Spider-Man and he wanted me as backup! Against the Avengers! It was crazy, completely out of the blue."  
  
Harley's lips had curled into a small smile, and completely ignoring the bombshell Peter had just dropped, responded with a story of his own.  
  
"Sounds like him. For me, he broke into my garage-"

:::

Steve finally found Peter and Harley on the dock, talking like they'd know each other for years. He was almost reluctant to break it up. Regardless, there were things that needed to be done. He cleared his throat.  
  
"I've been told that you're good with machinery and building things? Something's wrong with the time machine. It broke in the attack, and we need to put the stones back, sooner rather than later. Scott needs help, and Bruce's fingers are too big. You're up to bat."  
  
Neither of the boys said anything as they got up to follow Steve, but he supposed that wasn't much of a surprise. Neither of the boys had said much of anything all day, at least until Steve had found them together on the dock. But then, Steve supposed that came with the territory of having loved and lost someone.  
  
The property was large enough that it took a couple of minutes to get to the time machine, long enough for the silence to grow awkward, but small enough that Steve didn't have to linger in the awkwardness for very long.  
  
Mere moments after arriving, Steve fled. He didn't look back. He didn't know how to comfort two boys that he'd barely met, two boys that had some unknown connection to Tony- hadn't he seen that one in the Spider-Man costume during the final battle?  
Steve wasn't sure.  
  
Later, Steve would bash himself for not sticking around, for not supervising. Maybe if he had, things would have been different.

:::

Harley was feeling a lot of things. But most and foremost, past all of the hurt and abandonment issues that were flaring up ( _damn it, Keener! It’s not like Tony meant to die!_ ) was confusion. He was confused on how the world was going to carry on, after having lost half of the population and then having gained it back, five years apart. He was confused on how everyone disappeared to begin with, confused on how he came back, but most of all? Harley was confused on what he was meant to do now.  
  
He had been gone for _five years_. Last Harley knew about his current situation, they were still trying to get in contact with his Ma and his little sister. _Tony would have found them by now, Tony probably never lost them_ , part of his mind whispered. _Tony's dead,_ another part whispered back. Another part of his mind was completely fixated on the fact that his little sister wasn't so little anymore, that she was older than Harley now. What if they couldn't find them? With all of the confusion going on everywhere in the world, Harley wouldn't be shocked. Had they moved? Did they have a home anymore? Were they doing better without him?  
  
Maybe all of this confusion and stress was why when he was introduced to Peter, he took note in his mind. He took note of the blaring confusion in Peter's eyes, the confusion that they shared. He took note of the _painhurtpainpainpainHURT_ that seemed to radiate from the other boy, took note of how he seemed just as lost as Harley felt. And maybe that was why when Harley saw him sitting alone on the deck looking depressed, he stepped forward.  
  
And now he was here, watching and half listening as some guy he'd never met before ("Hi, I'm Ant-Man. Yeah, that's right! But you can call me Scott.") jabbered on about the time machine, how he didn't quite understand how most of it worked. How he had a degree in chemical engineering, not mechanical engineering and this was above him anyway but Steve hadn't listened to him. How his daughter Cassie would probably be better at figuring this all out than him, and she had grown so much while he was gone and was so smart!  
  
Any other time, and Harley would have been reluctantly charmed. As it was, he just wanted to curl up in his bed at home and cry into his pillow. Did his home even exist anymore?  
  
For lack of a pillow to cry into, getting lost in machinery sounded just about perfect. If Harley wasn't feeling quite so apathetic to most of his surroundings, he definitely would have cared a lot more about the fact that there was a _time machine_ right in front of him. Maybe later he would freak out about it, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to care beyond the technicalities of how it worked and how he was meant to fix it.  
  
This was how Harley found himself bouncing ideas off of Peter as they poured over the blueprints that Scott had handed them at one point or another (when did that happen?) as they poked at the machine, completely ignoring the sparks that had been shooting out of seemingly random places ever since the battle, but that Harley could now see was sparking because those wires-  
  
"Is it me, or is it starting to spark faster now?" Peter sounded curious, eager to take it apart and see what made it tick, but not afraid. Perhaps this lack of fear came from a sense of nothing left to lose, like Harley. Perhaps it came from foolhardiness. Tony would have said it came from “Science!" His Ma would have said it came from poor common sense.  
  
Regardless of where this lack of fear came from, it led to the boys leaning in closer instead of taking a couple rapid steps back as Scott found himself doing. In the end, it was the lack of fear that the boys shared in this one moment, that would change things forever.

:::

Peter's head pounded unpleasantly. Something hard dug into his back, and a low angry buzzing came from somewhere by his feet. Harsh sunlight dug into his eyelids. _Wait_. That wasn't right. Seconds later found Peter exclaiming harshly as his eyes snapped close again, the light causing a momentary but unpleasant sting.  
  
Somewhere to Peter's left a male voice let out a pained groan. _Harley_ , Peter quickly realized as he sat up and forced his eyes open again. His head throbbed unpleasantly at the sudden movement, and something like nausea rose in his stomach. Huh. Peter hadn't experienced nausea since the spider bite. Or at least, not nausea that came from physical causes. Anxiety and fear was a whole ‘nother story.  
  
“What happened?” Harley’s accent was thick. Peter cautiously cast a glance around. It looked mostly the same as it had. Scott was gone (had he gone to get help?) and the time machine looked like it had been fried. But otherwise, everything looked exactly the same.  
  
“You’d think a bunch of enhanced people would come running if they heard an explosion,” Harley commented wryly, seemingly as caught up with the situation as Peter was.  
  
“You would certainly think so,” Peter agreed. He heaved himself to his feet, his head spinning in protest and his stomach lurching as he did so. Peter carefully ignored it. It would probably go away in a couple of minutes.

He helped Harley to his feet, silently noting the slight grimace on Harley’s face. He had seemed mostly fine, but if Peter wasn’t feeling well with his enhanced healing, he couldn’t imagine how Harley must be feeling.

For a second, Peter wasn’t sure what they should currently be doing. Should they still be fixing the time machine? Finding Scott, who was probably worried out of his mind at the explosion? Harley interrupted his thoughts with one of his own.

“I don’t know about you, but my head is _pounding_. I say screw this, time isn’t going anywhere, and let's go see if we can mooch off of Ms. Pot--Mrs. Stark, so we can sleep on a couch or something.”

“Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”

Peter winced at how stupid he had just sounded, but ignored that as he followed Harley back towards the main part of the property.

Peter’s eyes trailed on an alpaca that he _swore_ wasn’t there earlier, during the funeral. Sure, Peter had been out of it, but he didn’t think he’d been out of it enough to miss an _entire_ alpaca.

“Was that alpaca there earlier, or am I going crazy?”

Harley, who up until then had been squinting at the ground in an attempt to keep the sun out of his eyes, looked up.

“What the actual fuck?”

“Oh, so you missed it too?”

“Peter, there is no way that I missed a fucking alpaca. Do you see that thing? It’s taller than I am! No. It must be magical or something, because it most definitely was _not_ there earlier.”

Peter couldn’t help the small grin that graced his lips.

“A magic alpaca.” Peter repeated, still grinning. “I guess its not out of the realm of possibility. I mean, I got superpowers by getting bit by a radioactive spider, and aliens exist so why not magic alpacas?”

Harley stopped short.

“A radioacti-- you know what, never mind. At least it wasn’t a radioactive alpaca.”

“What type of powers would someone get if they _were_ bitten by a radioactive alpaca?” Peter wondered.

“I don’t know, the ability to chew really fast? Or maybe your teeth would never stop growing? An iron stomach?” Harley looked like he was about to continue, when he stopped in his tracks.

“Where the hell did everybody go? This place was crawling with people, last I knew.”

Peter followed Harley’s gaze, quickly realizing that he was right. The lakehouse seemed empty. Or at least, mostly empty. The lights were on, and the garage door was closed, so Peter supposed it was possible that someone was home.

If Peter wasn’t feeling so unsettled, he might have made a joke about magic alpaca’s replacing everyone.

“It looks different. I’m not sure what it is, but something is off.” Peter very carefully did not mention his thoughts on the fact that the last thing they remembered, a time machine had blown up.  
“Yeah.” Harley agreed, sounding distinctly unnerved. “Should we knock?”

“I guess so? I don’t feel comfortable just walking in.” Peter shrugged.

They walked up the next couple of steps to the door. Peter ignored the trepidation in his gut, telling him that something was _wrong, wrong, WRONG_. His spider-sense wasn’t pinging, so nothing was wrong, he was just anxious. Or at least, that was what Peter told himself.

Harley lifted his hand to knock when it became obvious that Peter wasn’t going to do so. Before he got the chance to knock however, the door opened. Peter felt his heart rate increase as his stomach dropped and his brows furrowed in confusion.

Standing in front of them, was Tony Stark.


	2. Chapter 2

The most striking thing about this Tony Stark was his eyes. There was suspicion and anger swirling in them, but underneath it all was a deep rooted sadness and desperation. His eyes darted back and forth between Harley and Peter as if he couldn’t believe that they were there, before abruptly his entire expression closed down.

“Tony? Who is it?” Mrs. Stark’s voice sounded from inside, although she sounded decidedly distracted, which was explained a moment later when a child’s loud laughter sounded, a delighted shriek cutting through the laughter.

“Don’t worry about it! I’ll be back in a little bit, okay Pep?” Without looking away from Harley or Peter, and barely waiting for a confirmation from Mrs. Stark, he shut the door behind him.

He started walking away from the house, looking back every couple of seconds--although whether it was because he wanted to be sure that they were following him, or because he wanted to be sure that they were even  _ there,  _ Harley wasn’t sure.

They stopped outside of the magical llama enclosure. Or, Harley supposed, not so magical, considering Tony was here. They had what, gone back in time? Gone to another universe, maybe? Harley wasn’t sure how the multiverse and time travel worked.

How would they explain this to Tony? How would they go back? Did they want to go back? What would happen if they didn’t?

It wasn’t until Tony cleared his throat that Harley realized that Tony was staring expectantly at them, something in his expression that Harley had never seen before. Well, that wasn’t true. Harley had seen it on him when he had nearly sent Tony into panic attacks in the past and he was trying to hide it.

If they were in the past, sometime after the snap, it would make sense for Tony to be shocked.

“Look, I’m gonna jump to the case. Who the hell are you and how did you find my house?” Harley’s headache, which he had nearly forgotten about upon seeing Tony, suddenly worsened exponentially. He didn’t really know what to say that wouldn’t sound insincere or like some cliche. Apparently Peter didn’t know either, because the silence stretched into a minute, and then into two minutes, and quite frankly? Harley was surprised that Tony was being this patient.

“I’m going to ask this one more time, who are you?”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter hesitated. His voice was unsure, and something like pain flashed across Tony’s face before he hardened.

“Peter Parker and Harley Keener are dead. They died three years ago, when the snap took half of the population. Now, if you don’t have an answer for me, I think I’ll just call in-”

“Wait! We can prove it to you. Ask us anything. Or, we could show you the time machine? It’s a little bit broken but we could fix it. Or you could do both things? Wait, that didn’t make sense. I meant you could ask us questions and check out the time machine, but-” Tony raised a hand to stop Peter’s babbling.

He looked pained, as if he desperately wanted to believe them, but didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“Alright. Show me this time machine of yours.”

Peter led the way, his face anxious. Harley contented himself to walk behind and study Tony. He had an aura of sadness around him, but there were laugh lines around his eyes. Harley supposed they had Morgan to thank for that.

Tony ignored Harley’s intense study, staring straight ahead, past Peter. It wasn’t long before they got to the jumbled mess of a time machine. Bits and pieces of the metal looked scorched, wires were sticking out in places, and chunks of the machine had fallen off and were now laying in the grass around the machine.

Tony stared at it, an inscrutable expression on his face, before he started fiddling with the machine, trying to figure out how it had been built and if it was truly a time machine. Finally, he looked up.

“Do you know how this worked?”

“I know there was quite a bit of quantum physics involved, Lang kept talking about the quantum realm. They also used the Pym Particle, but I’m not sure about much beyond that,” Harley admitted. “We were told to work on it when it got broken, but we hadn’t gotten much farther than poking at it, and we’re not sure how the Pym Particle is involved, really. We might need Lang for that, because we don’t have any on us.”

Tony blinked.

“Lang? As in the guy who can shrink and get big? Last I knew, he had disappeared in the snap with the rest of them.” Harley felt confusion run through his body.

“Peter, I thought they said he was part of the time heist?"

"Yeah, he was. I'm mostly certain of it? They said something about how he'd been stuck in the Quantum Realm, right?" Peter paused before his eyes lit up. "I think he like, popped up in a storage unit or something?"

"Hmm. I'll look into it. And just so you know, we are totally talking about this ‘time heist’ later."

“So you believe us?” Peter asked before Harley could say anything. At the question, the look on Tony’s face changed slightly, although Harley wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

“Against my better judgement, yes. Although I will want answers on how this was possible.” He paused then, his face becoming pinched and worried. “Do you know about Morgan then?”

Harley and Peter nodded.

“We  _ are _ from the future, old man.” Harley snarked, before blinking. “Wow, I can’t believe that I was able to say that non ironically.”

“I don’t think either of us got any further than introductions,” Peter volunteered. “We’d only just barely came back before this happened.”

Tony seemed slightly bothered by Peter’s wording, but he didn’t comment on it.

“Well, come on. Fri-baby, can you be a dear and send the bots up to help carry the time machine in?” Barely waiting for a response from his phone, Tony started walking back towards the house, his pace quick, although he still looked back at them every once in a while. This time though, his looks were much more discreet. Harley got the distinct feeling that it wasn’t due to suspicion, and his stomach twisted unpleasantly as he realized that to Tony, they had also been dead.

Where before the walk had seemed so long, now it seemed like it was mere seconds before they came upon the lake house once again. Harley’s thoughts were racing. It felt like he had emotional whiplash. Only an hour ago, he had been feeling lost and depressed because Tony was dead ( _ is still dead, this is the past,  _ Harley reminded himself, ignoring the incredulity that came from the thought) and because he was confused about everything in his life. Now, Tony was in front of him, alive and well.

That may not fix the fact that Harley still had no clue where his mom or Abby was, but he still felt better. Tony was here, alive, and Harley could ask Tony later if he knew what had happened to Harley’s Ma and Abby.

Harley forcibly changed his thought process when he noticed that they were coming up upon the house.

It looked basically the same as it had in the future, with a few minor changes. Toys were scattered across the living room carpet, there was a Hello Kitty blanket rumpled in an armchair, and in the middle of it all was Pepper and Morgan Stark.

“Daddy!” Morgan babbled, running up to him and hugging his knees as if he had been gone for far longer than the half hour that he had been outside. Above her head, Mrs. Stark and Tony exchanged glances, Mrs. Starks eyes dotting over to Harley and Peter a couple of times in question.

Tony scooped Morgan into his arms, a wide smile crossing his face.

“Morguna! Were you good for mommy?” He cooed, brushing her hair out of her face. Morgan nodded vigorously, grinning.

“Yes!” She shouted. Tony ignored it with the ease of a parent well versed in children screaming in their ears.

“Hmm.” Tony pretended to think, looking up at Mrs. Stark. They shared a smile as Morgan loudly insisted that she had been very good.

“Who’s that?” Morgan pointed in the general direction of Peter and Harley, a demanding look on her face.

“That’s Peter and Harley. They came from the future.” Tony spoke conspiratorially, as if they were sharing a secret, winking at the last part, making Morgan giggle even as her eyes lit in recognition. Harley got the feeling that the last sentence was actually directed at Mrs. Stark.

“We’re going to go play in the lab, figure out a few future things. Are you fine with watching the Mongoose?”

“Go have fun. We can talk about this later.” Mrs. Stark assured.

Permission granted, Tony quickly ushered Peter and Harley out of the room. They went down the stairs into the basement, which opened up into a large open room with bright lights and tools scattered everywhere.

“Oh, Fri-honey, before I forget, can you send out feelers for Lang’s belongings? They’re probably in one of the storage compartments.”

“Sure thing, boss.” There was a pause, before a beep sounded and Dummy rolled into the room from an elevator that Harley hadn’t noticed. Why the hell had they taken the stairs? Butterfingers and U followed Dummy in moments later, helping to support the weight.

Harley blinked. He hadn’t realized that the mostly inept bots could carry that much weight, even when they combined their strengths.

“Where are you going with that?” Tony asked suspiciously, as the bots suddenly turned around, heading for the other side of the lab, where Peter had wandered at some point while Harley was lost in thought. “Come back here! You can go greet Peter when you put the time machine down. Woah! Don’t drop it, I swear I’m going to donate all three of you to  _ Harvard _ . That's right, you wouldn’t even get MIT.”

It suddenly felt to Harley like everything slotted back into place. As if Harley hadn’t been dead for 5 years, as if his family wasn’t missing. It was as if he had just come up for a visit to Tony’s lab. It felt as if this was when his pieces came back together again, when he came back to life. Not when the reverse snap happened, but right here in this small piece of normalcy.

Ever since he had been brought back, Harley had felt so out of place, as if things would never go back to normal. How could they? Tony was dead, and Harley had been dead before that for five years, and his family no longer lived where he had left them. Everything had felt so dizzying, as if Harley had been forgotten and left behind while the world kept spinning.

Being in Tony’s lab again, with the boy that Tony had so desperately wanted him to meet, with the bots, with  _ Tony  _ himself, it felt like coming home. Like even when Harley and Peter were inevitably sent back, they would have some closure because they had gotten to say goodbye properly, because Tony had gotten to do what he had been promising for months before hand and have them all in the lab together at one time.

Harley didn’t doubt that things would get worse again before they got better, but right then? Harley felt the happiest he had ever since he came back--although he supposed the bar for that was fairly low to begin with.

Things got into swing pretty quickly once Tony finally wrangled the bots. It felt as if things were always supposed to be this way. They worked together as if they had been doing it for years--which Harley supposed that Tony had already worked with both himself and Peter, but Peter and Harley had met that day, had only been talking for a couple of hours. Had it really only been a couple of hours?

Harley had experienced so many emotions in the last three or four hours that it felt more like it had been  _ days _ .

They poked around the machine for hours, in a whirlwind of building and poking at the machine, with the occasional “What if we took this part away?” or “Why would this be there? Oh wait, never mind.”

This was why it was so surprising when Mrs. Stark came into the room with little Morgan sitting on her hip. She had a warm smile on her lips, although she looked tired.

“Happy brought dinner over. Come upstairs, the project will wait.”

Harley was half expecting Tony to reject the offer, but was pleasantly surprised when he immediately put his tools down. Something must have shown on Harley’s face, because Tony explained.

“I have to set a good example, Morgan is so young and impressionable. Besides, I have to be able to keep up with her. I guess you might not know this yet, but she’s a bundle of energy. You said earlier that you had only been briefly introduced, right?” Tony paused, his brows furrowing. He looked slightly troubled, as if he was finding something wrong with that statement, or as if there implications there that he was catching that neither Peter nor Harley had actually meant to give him.

“Anyway, food time! Growing teens need to eat. Especially with Peter’s quick metabolism.”

“Does that come with being Spider-Man, or is it just a Peter trait?” Harley asked, partially curious, and partially wanting Tony to know that he knew. He paused at the threshold of the lab, blinking, but then continued on, leaving Peter to answer the question.

“It’s a spider thing.”

It looked like Peter might be about to say more, when a male’s voice said very flatly, “What the fuck.”

Happy stood at the top of the stairs, his eyes fixed on Peter, and to a lesser extent, Harley. Which made sense, Peter had told Harley earlier on the deck about how he had texted Happy for months before becoming close with Tony, where Harley had never had to go through Happy and had never really been close with him. They’d met before though and hadn’t  _ disliked  _ each other (even if Happy had thought Harley was a brat, and  _ no _ Harley was not still salty about it, thank you very much), they just hadn’t been super friendly with each other.

At the top of the stairs, Mrs. Stark lightly scolded Happy over his language, gently swatting at his arm, but Happy barely seemed to notice, his eyes still fixed on Peter.

“Tony. Where’d the kid come from?”

“Would you believe me if I said the future?”

“Maybe if you hadn’t phrased it like that.”

“Unfortunate that its true then.”

“How’d they come back?”

“You know, we hadn’t gotten that deep into that story yet. Believe me though, when I say that we will. Actually, that sounds like the perfect evening activity, don’t you think? Dinner and a show.”

“Would you like me to invite Colonel Rhodes, boss?” Friday asked from the ceiling. “That sounds perfect. You’re a dear, Fri.”

“Thanks boss. I try.” Friday’s slightly robotic voice deadpanned.

“But first, food. What’d you bring tonight, Haps?” Tony abruptly changed the topic, his voice cheerful to the extent that everyone in the room doubted its verity.

“Pizza.” Happy stated. “As usual.”

Dinner was devoid of anything important, although Morgan happily babbled about her day to Tony and Happy throughout dinner, her mostly incoherent stories interspersed with random questions directed at Harley and Peter and pauses to pick the pepperoni off of her pizza or peel the cheese off and stick it in her mouth.

Harley was reminded of Abby when she was younger. It hurt slightly to think of her when he had no idea where she or his mother were, or if they were okay. Still though, dinner was a mostly relaxed affair, with Mrs. Stark and Happy only staring occasionally. Tony, thankfully, had mostly stopped staring while they were in the lab, although he did still look at them on occasion as if he thought this was a dream or that they would disappear suddenly.

Immediately after dinner, Tony whipped Morgan away for a bath, while Mrs. Stark led them into the living room and Happy made some excuse about getting drinks for what was sure to be an exhausting conversation.

Mrs. Stark ushered them onto a love seat, sitting on a chair across from them. She then blatantly studied their faces, not caring about subtlety. Harley shared a look with Peter, feeling slightly relieved when the other boy seemed just as uncomfortable as he did.

“They missed you, you know. Tony never stopped blaming himself. He’s gotten a lot better at showing his emotions ever since Morgan was born. Even then though, I doubt he’s going to tell you just how much he hurt. He designed you rooms here, even though we thought that…” Mrs. Starks voice broke, her eyes tearing up slightly. She quickly wiped them away.

“Mrs. Stark,” Peter began, his voice slightly unsure, as if he didn’t quite know what to say.

“Call me Pepper, both of you. We’ve all heard so much about you from Tony that you may as well have been here the whole time. That is, assuming you are who you say you are, who you look like. I think it would crush Tony completely if you’re not. And then,  _ I  _ will crush  _ you _ .” Pepper smiled pleasantly.

Almost on cue, Happy bustled into the room juggling a small glass of wine, what looked to be an entire bottle of scotch with two shot cups on top of the lid, and three mugs of what Harley realized to be hot chocolate when two of the mugs were placed in front of him and Peter. Pepper claimed the wine, and Happy one of the shot glasses, leaving a shot gloss and a mug of hot chocolate unclaimed.

A commotion outside of the front door caught all of their attentions. Peter tensed beside Harley before Colonel Rhodes came bursting in, the War Machine armor still unassembling around him.

His eyes fixed on Peter and Harley and narrowed dangerously, although seeing them both sitting there calmly seemed to calm him as well. He was in the midst of claiming the second shot glass for himself when Tony bustled into the room, probably having heard the commotion. The front of his shirt was wet, but he was sans Morgan, so Harley assumed she was in bed. They’d had a somewhat late dinner, which looking back, Harley thought might have been Pepper allowing them more time in the lab.

Tony was just grabbing the third mug of hot chocolate when Colonel Rhodes fixed them with a look.

“So. You say you’re from the future. You wanna explain?”

Peter and Harley shared a look, each obviously wondering who would start the explanation. Sighing, Harley decided to take one for the team.

"We're from the year 2023. We had just finished the final battle with Thanos. We were at--" Harley swallowed, wondering if he should just come clean and tell them, before deciding against it. "At a funeral. Rogers had been tasked with returning the infinity stones back to their rightful places in the timeline, but the time machine wasn't working. It had gotten damaged when the compound fell on it, so Lang and the two of us were meant to fix it."

"Alright, but that doesn't explain very much about how you were brought back in the first place, or why the compound fell. And Thanos is dead, what do you mean by final battle with Thanos? And explain the whole thing with Lang again?" Tony demanded.

"Lang? Who?" Colonel Rhodes butted in, completely ignoring all the more relevant things Tony had asked.

"The shrinky dude. He was on Team Cap during the Accords mess, but we hadn't heard of him before that, or since? Ringing a bell?" Tony played along.

"Okay, what about him?"

"He was the one with access to Pym Particles, which somehow is what makes the time machine work? I'm not completely sure, but it has something to do with the Quantum Realm." Peter volunteered.

"As far as we know from what we were told, he was in the Quantum Realm and got stuck there when the snap happened. Anyway, he enabled you to build the time machine, and then all of the Avengers and some of the Guardians went back in time to grab the stones from the past."

They all blinked at the dump of information, despite how vague it was.

"So…" Tony started, "You know where all these stones are in the timeline?"

"Yeah, but be careful who you bring with you. Nebula was able to be hacked last time, and some other Nebula took her place and brought Thanos into our time."

"Noted." Tony stated dryly. He looked as if he was going to press for more details until Pepper leaned forward. For most of the meeting, she had been surprisingly quiet.

"You said the accidental time travel happened at a funeral?" She pressed. "Whose funeral was it?"

By the look on her face, Harley would wager that she knew already, and just didn't want it to be true.

"It was Tony's." Harley admitted quietly. "This time, if you can help it, do not snap your fingers. Let someone else do it. Someone who will survive."

The room was completely quiet.

"I don't know about you, but I'm tired and would like time to process. We can cover the details later, with the Avengers and the Guardians. Tony, why don't you show the boys to their rooms?" Pepper asks, forcing an obviously fake smile to her face.

"Yeah, good idea," Tony blinked. He seemed distracted and distant as he led the boys down the hall. Harley ignored the fact that no one else had left the room, and that they were probably going to talk about them. He stopped in front of two wooden doors, next to where they had learned the bathroom was.

"These are your rooms. I built them into the plans because--" Tony cut himself off, clearing his throat gruffly. "Well. I'm glad you're not dead."

Tony briefly hugged them both, looking shaken and fragile, before walking down the hall the way they had come.

Earlier, Harley had wanted nothing more than to be alone and in his own room. Suddenly, the thought didn't seem so appetizing.

"I'm not quite tired yet. Do you want to come in with me?" Peter asked from beside him. He still seemed withdrawn from how their meeting had ended.

Harley wasn't sure whether Peter felt the same way he did, or whether he had noticed something on Harley's face and accurately read his emotions. Either way, Harley couldn't bring himself to turn the offer down.

And so he followed Peter in.

:::

Peter wasn't quite sure why he had invited Harley in. Something about Harley was just comforting. Maybe because they had similar personalities, or maybe because they had both been snapped, and had similar relationships with Mr. Stark?

Peter wasn't sure, but regardless he felt better that Harley was with him, that he wasn’t alone in this weird twist. It was quiet as they both got ready for bed. They climbed into the large bed, not saying anything by mutual agreement.

It occurred to Peter that they had still only known each other for a day, and yet they both felt completely comfortable sharing a room, sharing a  _ bed _ . Peter was normally a pretty shy person, but it already felt like he had known Harley for forever. It was as if the feeling had come out of nowhere.

“You still awake?” Harley’s voice was soft.

“Yeah. Today was a lot.” Peter didn’t expand.

“Yeah. It was nice though. It feels like I got some closure. Like Tony got to introduce us to each other and to his family in a more official manner. It’s like we’re getting to say goodbye.” Harley’s tone was vulnerable, and Peter got the feeling that Harley was similar to Tony in that he didn’t express his emotions openly very often.

“I know what you mean. It was like everything happened so quickly, my head was left spinning. But here? I feel like I was able to get myself sorted out a bit, adjust to what happened. The snap feels more real, knowing that we weren’t the only ones affected so drastically by it. We lost five years, they lost half the population. Like, logically I knew that, but it didn’t really hit home, I guess. Did you see the look on Mr. Starks face when he saw us?”

“Yeah. He was heartbroken. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to him if we  _ weren’t  _ actually us. And what Pepper said, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Me either. This is just a weird situation all around, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

Peter waited a long time to see if Harley was going to say anymore, but eventually his breathing evened out. Peter turned around, and decided to try and sleep as well.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I am not a New York local. I have been to New York once in my life, and so all the places that Peter mentions in this chapter is completely fictional as far as I know.

Peter was tired. He sat next to Morgan at the table, with Harley on his other side, a scowl set deeply in his face to attest to his own sleepiness. Mr. Stark had woken them earlier than they would have preferred, cheerfully announcing that he had found Lang’s shit, and they should go spring him from the Quantum Realm.

That was about half an hour ago, and now they sat in the dining room, with Colonel Rhodes still looking slightly suspicious, as if he was unsure how much he believed their story. Morgan was cheerfully eating, syrup all over her fingers and face, and Mr. Stark and Pepper seemed to be trying to pretend that last night hadn’t happened. Harley was apparently not a morning person, and Peter kept accidentally making awkward eye contact with Colonel Rhodes.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long after breakfast for Mr. Stark to shoo them out the door, meeting Happy out front with the car. Had Happy left last night? Peter had no clue, but he hadn’t seen the man anywhere on the property until now.

Most of the ride was silent, and Peter had the distinct feeling that a large portion of it had to do with the fact that Mr. Stark was prophesied to die in a couple of years. When exactly were they, anyway? Morgan was still barely out of infancy, it had to be at least a year or two off, right?

It took a while to get to the storage unit, but the lake house was out of city limits, so Peter wasn’t overly surprised. The challenge came when they got to storage unit, and after Mr. Stark somehow got them inside. Surely this wasn’t legal? But then again, this was Tony Stark. Peter remembered the fuss over Mr. Stark telling congress to fuck off, and figured that this couldn’t be worse than that.

But that didn’t tell them how to operate the portal, nor did it come with an instruction manual.

“Well, it couldn’t be that hard to bring him back, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent him in, right?” Harley suggested. “Why don’t we take a look at the code?”

Mr. Stark pulled a cord out of nowhere, and hooked his phone up the machine, wincing when a long string of code came up, no comments anywhere. It made sense, if they didn’t want anyone to know what the machine did, or how to use it except themselves, not commenting the code was an effective way to do so. It would require a person to pick apart the entire code, unless they already knew what it did and how it did it.

Mr. Stark sighed heavily, leaning against the machine. He took a quick step backward, flinching when it suddenly whirred to life. Light came from inside the van in front of them, and a loud noise like wind filled the storage unit.

Peter shifted uncomfortably, as the loud noise wreaked havoc on his senses. He resisted the urge to cover his ears with his hands. As suddenly as it started, the whirring sound cut off and a large crash came from within the van.

Mr. Stark hurried around, tapping the face of his watch even as he threw the backdoor of the van open. Inside, rather predictably, lay Scott Lang, looking rather confused.

It took far too long to get Lang caught up on everything, which wasn’t helped by his devastation after realizing that he had missed three years of his daughters life ( _ so that’s when we are _ , Peter realized, taking note of the information), nor his slight distrust of Mr. Stark.

Eventually, Mr. Stark snapped.

“Look, we’re trying to fix things! I don’t know what Pym told you about me or even what exactly he thinks of me because it's all based on what he knew of my dad, but he’s a bitter old man who’s been shunning me for years when I’ve only met him once or twice, and even then we didn’t even talk! As for the whole Accords situation, we’ve gotten over that. We have bigger fish to fry. Half of the population is gone, are you gonna help us or not?”

Lang looked like he’d been slapped with a fish.

“Right, of course. I’m sorry.” He backtracked. The thing was, Peter was nearly certain that the other man meant it. He felt slight pity well up in him. Lang was in a similar situation as them, but he’d been  _ conscious  _ for the three years that he was gone, and he hadn’t even realized that he’d been gone that long, nor had he known why he hadn’t been brought back by the people that he trusted.

And then to be pulled back by someone whom he’d heard bad things about, asking for something he probably wasn’t supposed to give, all while learning that he’d missed out on three years of his daughter's life?

Peter sympathized. He knew what it was to lose several years of your life. He couldn’t help but wonder if being conscious for that time would have helped, or made things worse.

“So these two are from the future? They know how to fix things? I take it we’re messing up their timeline, then? How is that gonna work, do you think? Like, will they disappear randomly, or will there be two of them, or are we gonna send them back to their timeline to disappear?” Lang rambled, breaking up Peter’s thoughts. It was a good point, though. What  _ were  _ they gonna do about Harley and him?

“I-” Mr. Stark blinked. He looked as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Peter wondered if this was because he hadn’t thought about it either, or because he didn’t think they would like what he had to say.

“I’m not sure.” He finally managed. “I guess, it's up to you.”

He turned to look at Peter and Harley, who both froze at the sudden pressure to make a rather important decision about their futures. Before Peter could speak, or even think too hard about it, Harley spoke.

“I’d like to be sent back to the future. I may cease to exist, but I think being brought back this way would be less traumatizing, and besides, I’d only be different by a day or two. I’ll help find the stones, and before you bring everyone back, you can send me to the future. If time travel works via the multiverse theory, then the worst that will happen is that I have to deal with what I would have had to deal with anyway, but I think that we’re currently in the same time line we came from. I’m not sure why, just a hunch. I mean, maybe that wouldn’t be the case if there was already a Harley here, but I’m currently dead, so I think it’s fine.” Harley decided, making a fairly logical decision surprisingly quickly.

Peter had been planning on asking for time to think about it, but what Harley said made sense. They’d only been back for about two and a half days. Ms. Potts had been rather efficient in setting up Mr. Starks funeral and gathering everyone up, even with the grief that had hung off of her like a shroud.

“Yeah, I’ll do that too.” Peter agreed. Harley flashed him a smile, although there was some other emotion in it that Peter wasn’t quite sure how to read.

Mr. Stark nodded tightly. They all looked back at Scott, who paused at being the center of attention, before standing to gather the Pym Particles.

“Pepper has probably gathered the Avengers and the Guardians by now. You need a ride, Lang?”

“No, I’ll follow in the van.” He decided, seemingly not wanting to leave it behind. Mr. Stark shrugged uncaringly.

“Come along, kiddies.” Mr. Stark said cheerily, walking out of the storage unit.

The ride to the compound seemed to take a lot longer than the ride to Lang’s storage unit had. Peter realized that logically, this probably wasn’t true, but it seemed it nonetheless. Peter tried to ignore the odd lack of other cars on the road, and the abandoned houses and vehicles that were scattered around them.

Similar to before, it was mostly silent, with Peter and Harley chatting quietly about nothing in particular in the back seat.

When they finally got to the compound, the gate was already open. They were waiting for them. Peter imagined that Pepper had called ahead and told them that they were coming.

Rogers, having noticed them near immediately, walked outside to meet them almost as soon as they pulled up, Romanov on his heels and everyone else not far behind. Peter absently noted that Hawkeye was absent from the assembly, although why he was gone when they had successfully gotten Thor and the aliens, from  _ space,  _ Peter wasn’t sure.

“Pepper filled us in,” Rogers told Mr. Stark, mostly ignoring Harley and Peter, although his eyes occasionally flittered over to watch them curiously. “I take it that their story is true?” His eyes seemed to be fixed on something behind them, which Peter thought was probably Lang, considering Peter had just heard his van pull up.

“Yep. I’m thinking the game plan is to fill Lang in, have a conversation on how the Pym Particles work, and then we pick the kids brains for locations of the stones and make a plan. Thoughts?” Mr. Stark asked.

“Sounds like a plan,” Romanov agreed, a small smile on her lips.

“Lang! Get your ass over here!” Mr. Stark then turned to Harley and Peter. “You wanna join in on filling in Lang?”

“Nah, we won’t have much to contribute. Call us over when you start talking about the Pym Particles though.” Harley decided, grabbing Peter’s hand and pulling him away from the group.

Peter blinked, slightly confused, but let it happen. Mr. Stark looked slightly suspicious, but he didn’t protest as Harley pulled Peter away, onto the lawn off the property. He didn’t seem to have a certain spot in mind, just  _ away _ .

“What’s up?” Peter asked. He figured that Harley had a reason for this, that he didn’t just decide to pull Peter away randomly. This was confirmed when Harley seemed hesitant to speak, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject. But eventually, he did.

“Vormir.” It only took that one word for Peter’s insides to freeze. Last time, Romanov had died. A sacrifice was required, they had been told. They’d gotten the entire explanation when they honored Romanov alongside Mr. Stark at the funeral. But they hadn’t told them that last night. They didn’t know about the required sacrifice yet. Peter wasn’t going to exist in a couple of hours anyway, so it wouldn’t actually hurt anyone if Peter was the one to sacrifice himself, right? He would just need to--

“So we’re agreed then? We volunteer to go to Vormir, and then I can sacrifice myself?”

“What, no! I mean, yes, we’re going to volunteer for Vormir, but I was thinking I would sacrifice myself.”

“I mean, does it really matter which of us sacrifices ourselves? It’ll have the same affect, I think.” Harley pointed out. “Thats why I will sacrifice myself. Besides, it was my idea.”

Peter immediately opened his mouth to argue.

“Peter. We can fight about this all we want, but we only have so much time before we’re called back, and we don’t want it to seem like we’re fighting. We can duke this out later, okay? In a couple of hours, neither of us will exist anyway.”

“Yeah, okay. But we  _ will  _ talk about this later.” Peter warned. “Do you think we’ll get along?”

Harley blinked, seemingly slightly confused by the complete subject change.

“I mean, I don’t see why we wouldn’t. It seems to me, we get along really well. I’ve never gotten along with someone so quick, and I don’t think it’s just because of our similar relationship to Tony.”

Peter smiled.

“Yeah, normally people don’t like me too much. Too nerdy, too chatty. And this is coming from someone who goes to a nerd school. What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t been brought back in time? If we’d just continued to live our normal lives in 2023? Or well, as normal as they could get, what with everything.”

“I think that things would have been a lot harder. Peter, they don’t know where my family is in the future. My ma, my little sister, I have no clue where they are. And Tony was dead, and we’d missed five years. Three years may not be a hell of a lot better, but it is still better.

“And, I think that we’d have been friends, at the very least.” Harley finished.

“At the very least?” Peter echoed.

“Yeah. If we’d met under better circumstances, I think I’d have probably asked you out already. Actually, you know any good places in New York? Maybe you coulda shown me around.”

“If we’d met under better circumstances, and you’d have asked me out, I probably would have said yes, and recommended Mr. Delmars. Its the best sandwich shop in Queens. Mr. Delmar always gives Spidey a free sandwich. They have the  _ best  _ bread there. And then, I could’ve shown you the sites. All the touristy places, sure, like Central Park and Times Square, but also those places that you have to be a local to know. Like the best hot dog stands, that one pizza place on the corner of Main, and there’s this really good smoothie shop in this mall in Brooklyn. Of course, there’s also some fun shops in Times Square, which is touristy, sure. But still. Maybe we could’ve seen a show. It would’ve been fun.” Peter’s voice softened significantly at the end, as he realized that they wouldn’t actually exist anymore. Sure, there would still be  _ a  _ Peter Parker and  _ a  _ Harley Keener, but it wouldn’t be  _ this  _ Peter Parker, nor  _ this  _ Harley Keener. They would never get a chance to do this, not as they were now.

“Yeah, it would’ve been. And hey, our other selves will be meeting under better circumstances. Maybe not the best, but better. Maybe they (we?) can still have some fun, even if it won’t actually  _ be  _ us.” It looked like Harley was about to say more, when Mr. Stark called them over. Peter couldn’t help the wistful feeling in his chest, and wish that they’d had just a couple more minutes to talk. If Peter noticed when Harley helped him and then didn’t release his hand, he didn’t say anything about it.


	4. Chapter 4

“So, the plan is this,” Rogers reiterates, to make sure everyone was on the same page. “Tony, Scott, Bruce and I will go to the Battle of New York. Tony and Scott will grab the Tesseract while making certain that Loki doesn’t get it while I get the Mind Stone and Bruce gets the Time Stone. Natasha and Rhodes will go get the Power Stone on Morag, using this grabber thingie.” Rogers paused, looked slightly befuddled as he held up a metal contraption that reminded Peter of those dinosaur heads on a stick that opened and closed their mouths. Rogers seemed to put it out of his mind before continuing.

“Thor and Rocket will go get the Reality Stone on Asgard, and Peter and Harley will go get the Soul Stone on Vormir. Once we have all the stones, we bring everyone back, and then I’ll go return all of the stones.”

It had been a fight for Peter and Harley to get assigned Vormir, but they both insisted that they knew what they were doing and that they had a good reason that they wanted Vormir.

Mr. Stark had seemed suspicious, as if he didn’t quite trust their reasons, but he didn’t berate them or interrogate them in front of the other heroes, no matter how obvious he made it that he wanted to do so.

“Everyone know what to do?” Rogers confirms, looking around.

“ _No_ , after all, you’ve only gone over this _three_ times.” Mr. Stark snarked.

Romanov rolled her eyes, although it seemed more fond than exasperated.

“We’ve got it, Steve.” She assures.

“Tony, the time machine is ready?” Rogers turned to Mr. Stark.

“Yep. The Pym Particles really were the missing piece. Who would’ve thought that Hank Pym was actually useful for something besides glaring?”

Everyone ignored the jibe, as they got into position.

After Mr. Stark had called Peter and Harley over, it hadn’t taken long for them to figure out the Pym Particle under Lang’s (somewhat) watchful eye. It had seemed like he was trying to be strict about it, probably out of some lasting respect for Hank Pym, but it had also seemed like his heart wasn’t really in it.

Directly after that, Peter and Harley had been interrogated on locations of the stones. Peter knew that they could have figured it out if they thought about it--after all, they had done so last time, but why make them think it through when Peter and Harley could just tell them?

They had done their best to give details on all of the locations as well as the do’s and do not’s, while also carefully dancing around the catch on retrieving the Soul Stone. They must have done all right at least, because they were approved for the mission, and had gotten nothing more than a slightly suspicious look from Romanov, and many suspicious squints from Mr. Stark.

Peter, was personally, rather proud of himself for not blowing it completely, although to be fair, Harley had done most of the talking. Peter had just stood beside him and tried to seem earnest while throwing in his own thoughts and opinions every once in a while.

“Alright then, everyone suit up.” Rogers declared, something in his tone indicating a certain type of wistfulness, as if he used to say this often.

Things quickly dissolved after that. Peter tried to keep his expression straight and determined, as if he didn’t know that either he or Harley would soon be throwing themselves off of a cliff, as if he didn’t know that one would have to return without the other.

Peter didn’t want to return without Harley.

He was careful to keep this off of his face though. Peter wasn’t sure how well he did, but with the hustle and bustle, no one would notice anyway unless they specifically watched him.

Soon enough, Peter and Harley were standing in white and orange suits (and wasn’t it funny that Mr. Stark designed the same suit?) and standing on a large circular platform. Peter couldn’t help but wonder if this was how they felt the first time, knowing that they were going to go get everyone back, before deciding that it couldn’t be. They probably felt a strength of resolve, and a hope that they would bring back half the population.

Peter was just feeling nervous, a pit of dread curled in the bottom of his stomach. Everything had gone so quickly. Was it really just the day before that he and Harley were at Mr. Stark’s funeral, meeting for the first time?

And now, he was going even further in the past with him so that they could fight over who was going to hurl themself off of a cliff.

“You okay, Pete?” Mr. Stark asked.

 _Focus!_ Peter scolded himself. He and Harley were the only ones whom death wouldn’t truly stick for, because they were no longer meant to exist. The past had already changed too much.

“Of course, Mr. Stark! Let’s get this bread! Wait, do people still say that?”

“Pete, no one ever said that.”

“Um, maybe not old people.”

“Are you calling me old, ребенок паук?” Romanov butted in. She was smiling, but Peter couldn’t help the feeling of _Oh shit_ running through him.

“No, of course not, Ms. Romanov. Terribly sorry. I meant to say…” Peter paused, frantically searching, wishing he had just stopped at the apology. “I meant to say that, Mr. Stark wouldn’t have said that because _he’s_ old and out of touch. You’re not, so you must be like MJ! You’re too cool to say ‘Lets get this bread’.”

“Oh, so I’m out of touch now, too, hmm Pete?” Mr. Stark teased.

“Oh yeah, old man.” Harley jumped in, a large smile on his face that promised trouble. Before he could say anything though, Rogers put a stop to it all.

“That’s enough. We’re all ready to go?” He sounded stern, but he looked as if he were fighting back a smile. At his words though, the atmosphere once more became solemn.

“Ready Cap. See you all in a second.” Romanov said, before they all clicked the watches on their wrist and disappeared without a sound.

Within seconds, Peter found himself standing below a mountain overlooking a sea of sand and a body of water. The light was dim with a purple tint to it, a pink sun sitting in the sky overhead.

“Wow.” Harley breathed. “This isn’t a bad sight to die too.”

Peter scowled.

“Don’t make light of this. I know that in an hour or two, neither of us will exist, but right now, we’re still alive.”

The smile on Harleys face drops, and Peter felt bad for a second.

“Right, sorry. I’m just trying not to take it too seriously, ya know?”

“Yeah, I do. I’m sorry too, this is just stressing me out.”

“Me too.”

They were silent as they started the trek up the mountain. Harley started breathing heavier about a quarter of the way up, and Peter suddenly found himself thankful once again for his Spider powers.

By the time they got to the top, they had slowed significantly, and even Peter’s calves were burning unpleasantly. Peter climbed all the time as a part of his whole spider thing, but typically it wasn’t this type of terrain.

Harley sat down heavily a few steps onto the ledge of the top of the mountain, and Peter joined him. Barely had he sat down though, when a male voice with a german accent rang out into the air.

“Welcome. Harley, son of Macy. Peter, son of Mary. I am a guide, to all those who seek the Soul Stone.” A man with a cloak covering himself steps forward, most of his features covered, but not enough to where Peter didn’t see the flash of bright cherry red skin. He blinked. Was this an alien? It would make sense, they weren’t on Earth.

“Wait, what? So, we don’t have to sacrifice ourselves?” Harley asked, a shred of hope in his voice. The man looked up, and it took everything in Peter not to blanch.

“Only one of you. In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul, for a soul.”

“An everlasting exchange.” Peter echoed. “Wait, so say that there were two versions of one person, from two different points in the timeline. If the one from the future sacrificed their soul, would it do anything to the one from the past?”

The red man frowned.

“An interesting inquiry. I suppose it depends how much their souls differ from each other. How far apart on the timeline are they?”

“There would only be a couple day difference, but the one from the future experienced a loss of a loved one, whereas the one from the past will not, and has not.”

“In that case, it sounds as though the souls may have enough of a divergence to work the way you seem to wish. Be warned however, that should ever the two souls become the same or too similar, the Soul Stone may bounce back, but I know not all of the ways of the Soul Stone. It could go either way. If you want the stone however, you must choose.”

Peter’s chest constricted. It could go either way.

Peter glanced back at Harley, who seemed just as stricken as Peter. Peter’s eyes flickered towards the edge of the cliff, contemplating.

Just as the decision cemented in Peter’s mind, Harley surged to his feet. His legs buckled slightly at the unexpected movement after the climb from hell, which gave Peter just enough time to finish standing up and start running towards the edge.

He was close to the edge, oh so close, when Harley caught his hand.

“Peter,” Harley’s voice cracked, and it seemed as if he didn’t know quite what to say. “Please don’t. I can do it. If--if my younger version disappears too, it won’t matter as much. You’re Spider-Man! You can save lives! You matter to so many people, and I don’t even know if my family is still alive. Please let me.”

“You say I save lives, then let me save yours. I watched as my uncle died, as he bled out in my arms. Please, don’t make me watch you die. Harley, please. I can’t do it again. It’ll be fine.”

Peter felt like Harley wasn’t going to let this go, and it was truly going to be a battle between who was able to jump first.

“I can’t watch you die either. I guess it’ll be a race to the finish, won’t it?” Harley unknowingly repeated Peters thoughts back to him. The finish, indeed.

“I know we don’t know each other too well yet, but it was nice knowing you. I haven’t automatically clicked with someone like we did in a really long time, and not in the same way that we did.” Peter murmured quietly, meeting Harley’s eyes.

Peter maneuvered the wrist that was still in Harley’s grip slightly, to where they were holding hands instead, and turned to face Harley properly.

“I hope the other versions of us gets to go on that date.” Peter tried for a smile, and before he could second think himself, he pressed his lips against Harleys.

It lasted forever, it lasted for a second. Peter felt his heart beating loudly in his chest. Harley’s lips were chapped and tasted ever so slightly of maple syrup. As quickly as it began, it ended, and Peter found himself taking two steps backwards, his eyes still locked on Harley’s, even as he began to fall.

It felt like flying. It felt like swinging. And then, it felt like dying.

:::

Tony noticed immediately when Harley came back alone, and noticed immediately the fact that the boy had been crying. He was soaked, but that didn’t hide the redness of his eyes, or the tear tracks on his cheeks.

“Harley? What happened? Where’s Peter?” Tony tried not to sound too demanding. It seemed like the kid had had a hell of a day, but something in Tony was screaming at him that something was _wrong_.

“He got there first. It was supposed to be me. I thought that I could get one over on him, that I was smart enough to get to the ledge first, but I was wrong.”

“Son, calm down.” Steve attempted, doing an extremely bad job of hiding the alarm on his face. “Tell us what happened.”

And so Harley did. He explained how Peter and he had plotted to go to Vormir, because they thought that death wouldn’t stick for them, because they were from a future that no longer existed. He explained how when they had gotten there, the guide to the soul stone had disavowed him of that notion, how Peter might not be coming back. How the rule for getting the soul stone was a soul for a soul.

As he listened, Tony could feel ice cold terror grip his heart. He had just gotten Peter back, had gotten his hopes up, had thought that everything would be fine. And now, to hear that Peter would likely never come back to him, how the permanent version of Harley would never get to meet him, when they had obviously gotten along so well.

Tony thought he was going to throw up. While everyone else was obviously upset, the only one who seemed like he might be more upset than Tony was Harley. A part of that probably had to do with the horror of watching Peter jump off a cliff.

Something in Tony squeezed at the thought.

“I’d like to go back to my time now, please.” Harley said. His voice was thick from tears. “Then I won’t exist, and you can bring him back. He’ll come back. He has too.”

There was a certain type of desperation in Harley’s voice that Tony had never heard from him before.

“Harley,” Tony tried, his voice soft, even as he tried not to break down crying himself.

“Tony. There’s no point even trying to get over it for me, because I’m not going to exist soon anyway. Just send me back, so we can see if Peter’s alive. Please.” Tony had known this kid for nearly a decade, and not once had he heard him beg, or sound quite so downtrodden.

In any other situation, Tony would have insisted on talking about it, talking about how this was a horrible coping method, because wasn’t Harley killing himself in a way? So why wasn’t Tony insisting they talk about it yet?

This may have been the plan since this morning, but Harley hadn’t been crying his eyes out this morning, either.

“Please Tony. This isn’t my normal coping method, you know that. This wouldn’t normally be my first choice, but this way Peter can be alive faster. I’ll be alive too, you don’t have to worry about me. Please. Just send me back.”

Tony wanted to say no. He knew Harley was right, but it seemed wrong just sending Harley off like this. He hardened his resolve.

“First, I want to talk to you.”

“Tony-”

“Just give me 30 minutes. That’s all. Then we’ll send you back.”

“Okay.”

Harley followed Tony down the hall, his feet dragging. It was then that Tony realized that he didn’t know what to say, how to comfort Harley.

“Hey, it’ll be okay. Peter’ll be fine. You’ll meet him again, get on like a house on fire, hopefully without actually setting anything on fire, and then you can go out on the town, have some fun. I know it won’t be you, exactly, but it’ll still be you, won’t it?”

“Tony, he kissed me. Before he jumped, to try and stop me from getting there first. He kissed me.” Harley hadn’t said this in front of the rest of the Avengers, and quite frankly, Tony understood why.

“You’ll get plenty of opportunities to kiss him again.” Tony tried to reassure, feeling a bit awkward and like that wasn’t quite the right thing to say. “He’ll be just fine.”

“I hope so.”

They were both quiet, mourning silently for the Peter that had thrown himself off a cliff. They didn’t speak again for a long time, until finally Harley looked up.

“It’s probably been half an hour. Send me back.”

“Alright.”

It took only about 15 minutes for everything to be set up again. Harley smiled tremulously, though Tony thought that there were tears in his eyes again.

“I’m ready.” His voice was surprisingly clear, considering he had spent the last half hour trying not to cry.

And just like that, Harley was gone. Tony felt grief well up inside him once more. Ah yes, grief. An old friend of his.

In a desperate attempt to get his mind off of the two boys that had just ceased to exist, or at the very least would never remember the past two days of their lives, Tony hurried to get the gauntlet he had made when he still thought that they had a chance against Thanos three years ago.

And right before the hour on the clock hit one, Bruce snapped his fingers.


	5. Epilogue

“Do I know you? Because you look like my next boyfriend.”

Peter laughed in delight.

“You’re Harley, right?”

“Yep, and you’re Peter. Tony’s told me a lot about you. But he never told me how absolutely gorgeous you are. I can’t help but wonder what else he didn’t say. You wanna go out sometime, maybe when all the craziness dies down? We can exchange blackmail on Tony, maybe you can tell me how y’all met.”

“I’d like that. Maybe I can show you around New York? We could eat at Mr. Delmars, if it’s still open. It’s the best sandwich shop in Queens. Their bread is so good! And there’s this little smoothie shop in this mall in Brooklyn--”


End file.
